Blaze of Glory

by Michael Pryor

  'It's good to see you paying your respects, Aubrey,' Lady Fitzwilliam said as they walked with the congregation to the graveside.

  Aubrey had grown used to the fact that it was hard to surprise his parents. To the best of his knowledge, they hadn't known George and he had left Maidstone early in order to get to Greythorn in time for the funeral. 'It's the least we could do. He was a great man.'

  'I wasn't aware you knew him,' Sir Darius said, voice low, as they reached the grave.

  'We met on the shooting weekend,' Aubrey said. 'But I'd known of him for years. I've read his work.'

  'Of course.'

  The ceremony at the graveside was brief. Afterwards, they joined the long line to pay their respects to Professor Hepworth's widow.

  Mrs Hepworth was tall and extremely beautiful, even in her grief. Her long black hair was wound in an elaborate knot at the back of her neck and she sat rigidly in a chair as the mourners filed past. Caroline was at her side.

  'Mrs Hepworth,' Aubrey murmured. 'So sorry. Miss Hepworth.'

  Caroline raised an eyebrow when she caught sight of him. She nodded, but said nothing.

  Sir Darius and Lady Fitzwilliam were speaking with three older men Aubrey recognised as having visited Maidstone in the past. The tall, lanky one was Admiral Quist, head of the navy. The pot-bellied chap was Thomas Dunleavy, editor in chief of The Argus. The one who looked like he wanted to argue but thought it might be a good idea if he didn't was the Dean of St Stephen's College.

  Aubrey didn't hesitate. He left George and went straight over. He stood there and refused to be ignored. Sir Darius smiled wryly. 'Gentlemen, you know my son Aubrey?'

  The three elders stared at Aubrey as if he were a performing seal. He inclined his head. 'Admiral. Mr Dunleavy. Dean.'

  They huffed and harrumphed, acknowledging and condescending to him in what they thought was the best manly fashion, giving Sir Darius Fitzwilliam's son his due.

  Aubrey kept smiling, even though his teeth were gritted. I'll make you notice me for myself, he thought, one day.

  Aubrey's reward for his persistence was ten minutes of extremely boring conversation, as each of the three tried to either impress Sir Darius or enlist his assistance in a home for invalid sailors, a committee on journalistic ethics, and a building fund for St Stephen's College. These proposals were met with interest, incredulity and surrender, respectively.

  Aubrey took the opportunity to file away details of the three men, for future reference. He took note of any mention of their backgrounds or family, especially. His father was said to have a card index memory, and his knack for remembering trivial details of people he'd only met once was legendary. Aubrey aimed to be as good, if not better, at this subtle art.

  As he listened to the dean suggest that Sir Darius might like to contribute to the college's building fund, he saw a deacon working through the crowd. When the deacon spied George, he hurried to him and thrust a piece of paper into his hand.

  Aubrey excused himself and made his way to his friend's side. 'You're looking more than usually befuddled, George. What's going on?'

  George didn't say anything. He simply handed Aubrey the piece of paper.

  Fitzwilliam, Doyle, can you come to my house tomorrow morning? Yours etc, Caroline Hepworth.

  Aubrey was silent for a moment after reading it. He looked at George. 'We can't disappoint the lady, can we, George?'

  'We will if we can't find her house. She didn't give her address.'

  'A trifle,' Aubrey said and he slipped into the crowd that had gathered outside the church gates.

  It wasn't long before Aubrey found the minister and was able to extract the address of the Hepworth residence after disclosing that he wanted to take some flowers to the grieving family.

  At that moment, Sir Darius and Lady Fitzwilliam walked over, her arm in his. 'Aubrey, your mother and I are staying here in Greythorn for a few nights. I have to see some people. We can drop you at the railway station if you like.'

  'Where are you staying?'

  'The Triumph Hotel,' Lady Fitzwilliam said.

  'You wouldn't have a suite booked, would you? More than one bedroom?'

  Sir Darius stroked his moustache. 'Are you looking to stay here, too?'

  'George and I thought we might like to look around the university tomorrow. You've told me so much about it.'

  'Ah,' Sir Darius said. He looked at his wife. When she didn't demur, he nodded. 'Very well. Let us go.'

  The Triumph Hotel was a recent construction, a monolith in the centre of the town. Eight floors, it looked squat and solid and reputable. It reminded Aubrey of a bank manager with a respectable firm who had a sizeable pension awaiting his retirement.

  Sir Darius didn't stay in the suite for long. The telephone rang and, after answering, he excused himself, saying some people had come to meet him already. Aubrey noticed that he looked tense. Lady Fitzwilliam had thrown off her hat and shoes and arranged herself on the blue velvet of the chaise longue. She tapped the back of the chaise longue with one finger as he left. 'I worry about that man,' she muttered.

  George having gone to buy a newspaper, Aubrey was left alone with his mother for the first time since the shooting weekend. 'What do you mean?' he asked.

  She scowled at the door. 'I do wish these people could come to an occasion like this and not indulge in politics.' She sighed and waved a hand. 'I may as well tell fish not to swim.'

  'It does seem to be in their nature.'

  'And is it in yours?' his mother said. 'I wonder.'

  Aubrey waved a hand, precisely imitating his mother's gesture. She laughed. 'Now, Aubrey, tell me what you're up to.'

  Aubrey stretched and laced his fingers behind his head, even though relaxing was the last thing he felt like doing. His mother was among the most perceptive people he knew. She had an unerring gift for detecting falsehood. Her innocent invitation to talk made him feel like he was about to try to pick his way through a minefield.

  'I'm well,' he ventured.

  'Come now, Aubrey, I think I'm entitled to a little more than that.'

  'My studies are going smoothly enough. I'm reasonably confident about the exams.'

  'What about the Snainton Prize? I'd heard you were in the running for it this year.'

  You'd heard? Aubrey thought. So Duchess Maria isn't the only one with a network of informants. 'I'm in the running,' he confirmed. 'But with the school play, the cricket team, the cadets . . .' He spread his hands.

  'And what about that incident with Bertie? Has anything come of that?'

  Aubrey wondered how much his mother already knew. He decided a partial telling of the truth would be best. 'George and I went up to Penhurst again last weekend, to poke around. We didn't find anything useful.' Not bad, he congratulated himself. Nothing he could be hanged for there.

  'You were a hero, saving Bertie like that. I was proud.'

  Aubrey grinned. 'Thank you, Mother.'

  'But be careful. The attention, the thrill of meeting danger and besting it, can be addictive. One can grow to like being a hero. The adulation, the praise . . .' She paused, reflecting. 'Your father learned this. He understood that you should make sure you do these things for others, not for yourself.' She smiled. 'But it was well done, just the same.'

  His mother had a habit of doing this. She could go straight to the heart of the matter and touch it lightly. Sometimes it was dazzling, this ability, sometimes frustrating. Aubrey knew that the only way she survived in an atmosphere of constant politics and diplomacy was through her work.

  'You don't have to worry about me.'

  She smiled, a little sadly this time. 'Aubrey, you can't tell a mother not to worry about her children. I'm afraid it's part of the role.'

  'Well, children grow up.'

  'Ask your grandmother. See what she says.'

  'She worries about Father?'

  'Constantly.' She drummed her fingers on the back of the chaise longue and frowned. 'I'm frustrated at being tied u
p here. I was doing some fascinating work at the museum, classifying some new specimens from the east. Extraordinary birds, they were.'

  Aubrey admired his mother. She was a renowned field naturalist, but she was equally at home in the back rooms of museums arguing over taxonomy and out on expedition in jungles. It had been on one of these expeditions that she'd met the Marquis of Rimford – Aubrey's father when he still had his title. His squad had become separated from the regiment in a skirmish in the Mataboro jungle. Rose Hannaford, as she was then, had led them back to civilisation, making them carry specimens she picked up along the way. It was after they married that her husband renounced his title, becoming simply Darius Fitzwilliam, intent on entering the Lower House and gaining the prime ministership, as – according to law – the Prime Minister had to have a seat in the Lower House of Parliament, not be a peer in the Upper House.

  She rose from the chaise longue. 'Aubrey, I may rest a little before supper. Will you be happy here on your own?'

  'George will be back soon. I'll be fine.'

  Aubrey was dozing lightly when George came back. 'I say, old man,' his friend said as he burst into the room, 'I think you're right about this code business. Look at this corker!'

  George spread the newspaper on one of the side tables, then dragged it to where Aubrey was sitting. Aubrey blinked away sleep and found George was pointing at some lines in his beloved agony columns. 'Well, ' he said, 'it definitely looks like a cipher to me.'

  In the bottom corner of the page, surrounded by curt and plaintive messages, were four solid lines of garbled letters.

  George beamed. 'Yes. I've been trying to solve the dashed thing. Devilishly tricky.'

  Aubrey ran his fingers through his hair and yawned. 'That? Oh, I solved that last week.'

  George stared at him. 'You solved it?'

  'If it's the same cipher as you showed me on the way home from Penhurst, I'm sure I have.'

  'Aubrey,' George said, exasperated, 'when do you find the time to do all these things?'

  He looked up. 'Hmm? Time?' He looked back to the newspaper. 'I invented the seventy-minute hour, George. I get more done that way.'

  'I see.'

  'This cipher took me a while, though,' he said, tapping the newspaper. 'It was devilishly tricky, as you say.'

  'I tried everything I could think of.'

  'Well, yes. It wouldn't yield to straightforward frequency analysis, I found that out quite smartly.'

  'Frequency analysis,' George repeated. 'I see.'

  Aubrey snorted. 'I can always tell when you don't know what you're talking about. "I see" is a giveaway.'

  George was not a good actor. He tried to look wideeyed and innocent, but instead looked as if he had heartburn. 'Tell me about frequency analysis.'

  'The most commonly used letter in the language is?'

  'E.'

  'Correct. So we look for the most commonly used letter in the coded message and assume that's e. The same works at the other end of the scale.'

  'So uncommonly used letters like q, x and z would appear least frequently?'

  'Indeed.' Aubrey rubbed his chin. 'But this method didn't work. The gibberish remained gibberish. I had to think of something else.'

  'Some other pattern?'

  'Almost. I put it aside for some time and then, while I was rehearsing for the school play, it struck me. If the frequency of single letters wasn't revealing anything, perhaps I should be looking at the digraphs.'

  'Digraphs? Pairs of letters?'

  'Exactly. In order of frequency, the way we use the language, the most common digraph is th, then he, an, in and so on. The message you showed me last time was a long one, with plenty to work with. By concentrating on the digraphs I was able to uncover enough to read the message.'

  'Astounding, Aubrey, simply astounding. What did the message say?'

  'Nothing of any real account. Something like "Tomorrow night no good. Wait until Friday. Give the present to my friend at the station. He will have news for you." And so on. Quite banal.'

  'Oh,' George said, crestfallen. 'I'd been hoping for something more dramatic. Well, what about this one?'

  Aubrey studied it for a moment, then pulled up a chair. 'Pencil, please?'

  It took fifteen minutes of effort, with much scribbling and crossing out, but finally Aubrey sat back with a look of satisfaction on his face. 'There.'

  'You're done?'

  'Now, you can never be totally sure, but I think it reads like this: "Meet at fitness society this Friday. Plans are on course. We are not suspected. The way forward clear. Proceed." Of course, I inserted the punctuation.'

  'Hmm. Rather prosaic. It could be a young couple, planning elopement. See where it says "our plans are on course".'

  'That could mean anything. And why would a couple who are running away to get married meet at a fitness society?'

  'No idea. Another mystery, it looks like.'

  At that moment, Lady Fitzwilliam appeared at the door to her bedroom. 'What will remain a mystery, gentlemen?'

  Aubrey gestured at the newspaper. 'The agony columns, Mother.'

  'Ah, spying on others' lives, are we?' She laughed. 'Your father hasn't returned, Aubrey?'

  'No.'

  'Well, I shall have two handsome young gentlemen take me to dinner. Aubrey, would you ring the hotel dining room and reserve a table for three?'

  WHEN THE LIFT OPENED ON THE GROUND FLOOR, AUBREY was surprised to see Sir Darius waiting to enter. His face was distracted and serious, but it lightened when he saw his wife. 'Rose! I was coming to fetch you to dinner.'

  'I couldn't wait,' she said. 'Luckily these two were able to escort me. But we've only reserved a table for three.'

  'I'm sure they'll be able to accommodate us.'

  As Sir Darius shepherded them towards the dining room, Aubrey's eye was caught by a tall, angular figure leaving the hotel through the revolving door. Once outside, he turned back briefly, much as one would when trying to fix a location in one's mind. In the instant he turned around, Aubrey recognised him.

  It was Craddock, the head of the Magisterium.

  Thirteen

  THE NEXT MORNING, AUBREY SAT IN THE HOTEL DINING room watching George work his way through a breakfast the size of a small country. Poached eggs, sausages, bacon, fried bread and tomatoes, mushrooms, toast and orange marmalade disappeared as George ate with gusto.

  Aubrey picked at his food. A sausage sat on his plate next to an untouched fried egg. He'd taken a single bite from a piece of buttered toast.

  It had been an awkward night. He'd lain awake, convinced that his soul was about to be pulled from his body, but nothing happened. Then, in the small hours of the night, he'd lain awake simply worrying about the state he'd put himself in. It was pointless, worrying like that, but it overwhelmed him as he dwelt on what could have been and what he should do next. Sleep took him, eventually, but it was fitful, with troubled dreams.

  George finished. 'Excellent! Sets one up for the day, a breakfast like that.'

  'I'm glad you enjoyed it.'

  George studied him. 'You're having trouble.'

  'Not a good night. A few aches and pains.'

  'Perhaps you should stay here. I'll go and see Caroline.'

  'I can manage,' Aubrey said sharply, then he held up a hand. 'Sorry, George.'

  George grinned. 'You're interested in her, aren't you?'

  'She is interesting. Intriguing. Fascinating.'

  'Attractive?'

  'That's another way of putting it, I suppose.' He frowned. 'Is there a motive behind this inquisition?'

  'No, nothing really. I'm just pleased to see the effect she's having on you. Makes you seem human, old man.'

  'Effect?' Aubrey considered the best way to deny this for a moment, before the second part of what George had said caught up with him. 'What do you mean, "makes me seem human"?'

  George nodded. 'That took you longer than usual. She is having an effect on you.'

  Aubrey st
ood. 'Are you coming or staying here?'

  CAROLINE'S MODERN, TWO-STOREY HOME WAS IN A ROW OF houses in a quiet part of town opposite a small, well-kept cemetery which looked to be a favourite place for dogwalkers. Aubrey was disappointed when Mrs Hepworth opened the door. She was pale and drawn. Her hair was unbound, hanging well below her shoulders, and she wore a mauve robe that left her arms bare.

  'Good morning, Mrs Hepworth. Miss Hepworth asked us to visit her this morning.'

  'Yes,' Mrs Hepworth said. She studied Aubrey for a moment. 'You're Fitzwilliam, aren't you? Darius Fitzwilliam's boy?'

  This was a question Aubrey had faced all his life. 'Yes, ma'am.'

  'You have his eyes.' She stood back and waved them into the house, oblivious of Aubrey's curiosity.

  I have his eyes? he thought. How do you know his eyes so well?

  Caroline was waiting for them in the hall and Aubrey's train of thought veered in a completely new direction. She looked pale, but determined. 'Do you still want to see my father's workshop?' she said, without any preliminaries.

  'Of course,' Aubrey said. George nodded.

  'Very well. We'll go now.'

  'Caroline?' Mrs Hepworth said. She put a hand to her throat. 'What is this about?'

  'I want to show Father's workshop to these two. They may be able to help.'

  Mrs Hepworth looked pained for a moment. She took a deep breath and nodded. 'I see.' She turned to Aubrey and George. 'Caroline was always like this. She knows what she wants and I'm afraid that I've encouraged that independence. It's something I must live with, I suppose.' She looked at her daughter with such tenderness that Aubrey thought she was going to cry. Instead, she added in a very soft voice, 'Be careful.' She held her daughter at arm's length. 'You're wearing the diamond brooch he gave you.'

  'Yes,' Caroline took her mother's hands. 'I shan't be long.'

  Aubrey felt awkward. He looked at George, but he was studying an umbrella stand as if he'd always been fascinated by them.

  Caroline tapped her foot as she put on a small hat. 'Come now. We may as well be off.'

  They followed her as she strode down the footpath. Aubrey looked up and saw Mrs Hepworth watching from an upstairs window. With her pale face, her unbound hair and her robe, she looked like a figure from an ancient tragedy, a despairing mother watching her offspring leaving for war.